Linda Mattrisch – a UWM alumna who is now a lieutenant and paramedic with the Milwaukee Fire Department– returned to campus Friday as one of Wisconsin’s first graduates in a new community paramedics program.
Community paramedics will be certified to make home visits to those identified as frequent callers for emergency medical services and work with them to better manage their chronic health conditions.
“Anyone in the field sees there a real need to have community paramedics who have the time to figure out what’s going on with patients we see regularly, and find out why they are not getting the health care they need,” said Mattrisch, who has been a paramedic for most of her 32 years with the Milwaukee Fire Department.
Families, friends and fire chiefs watched Mattrisch and 29 other paramedics from Milwaukee, West Allis, North Shore, Greenfield and Madison received their certificates in the Mobile Integrated Healthcare Program from Kim Litwack, associate dean of the UWM College of Nursing.
Along with Milwaukee Fire Department Capt. Michael Wright, Litwack helped institute the program, which is coordinated by the College of Nursing, Medical College of Wisconsin and Milwaukee County Emergency Medical Services.
The paramedics who volunteered for the program began training in April. Along with online courses, the paramedics completed 40 hours of laboratory work at the College of Nursing and did additional clinical work at six locations in Milwaukee.
Each one also studied a neighborhood, researching its history and looking at its socio-economic status, including the availability of health care, shopping and recreation.
Mattrisch, who worked with Milwaukee’s Clark Square neighborhood in Milwaukee, said that project was a unique opportunity to better understand the daily lives of the people paramedics treat.
“The entire program was very comprehensive,” she said. “I spent 35 to 40 hours on the Clark Square research alone.”
Milwaukee County emergency services responded to 62,663 calls last year. Seven percent of those calls – 4,288 – were made by a group of 100 repeat callers, Wright said.
The Mobile Integrated Healthcare Program is designed to help identify frequent callers who could be helped by working with paramedics trained in managing their health conditions. Many have chronic conditions, such as asthma, diabetes and congestive heart failure, and lack regular medical care.
“The College of Nursing stands for decades of service and commitment to the Milwaukee community,” Dean Sally Lundeen said in addressing the graduates. “You will affect the individuals in our communities who need it the most, and your impact on the most vulnerable individuals will be enormous.”
Mattrisch earned her bachelor’s degree from UWM in 1982 and was in graduate school when she became interested in emergency medical services.
“It’s quite a career,” she said. “It’s been an honor to be with families at both the best and worst times of their lives.”
